"They've changed recently with these very thick edges, and seems cricketers are stronger than they used to be to wield these heavier bats they now use," reflects Bob Fielke.

As South Australia's last handcrafter of cricket bats, Bob arguably knows more than most about this very popular piece of sporting equipment.

Cricket bats have been made in SA by the Kumnick and Fielke families since 1984. And always out of willow, explains Bob.

"You go right back to 1880, around about then it was decided in England that willow was the best wood.

"Albeit there were 300 types of willow and only one has been chosen as the best for cricket bats, and indeed of that one variety it's only the female tree that is used."

It was a collection of willow trees grown along creeks in the Adelaide Hills that fed South Australia's cricket bat making industry for many years.

Planted there in the 1800's by German immigrants hoping to make the landscape better resemble Europe, and to help stabilise creek beds, this wood helped grow the first cricket bat business.

This first workshop was established in Lobethal in 1894 by the Kumnick family, then the Fielke family later joined the trade in the 1960's.

"When it comes to our family, my father first started using that willow being grown along the creeks.

"Then he used Poplar for a while which proved to be quite good, until he managed to access important English willow which I now use."

Bob says his father took about a day to make a bat, but in his Gawler workshop they're now crafted in about three-quarters of a day.

"I found rather than importing rods of cane for the handle, I was importing handle blocks where the handles were partly made, which helped me speed up things."

He says the razzmatazz of today's cricket games, with the invention of fast paced 20/20 matches, has increased the workload of a contemporary cricket bat maker.

"With the hard crashing of the ball in these quick games, the handles on the bats are breaking, so I have quite an enterprise here repairing and replacing the broken handles in bats.

"That string that holds the handle into the blade, if it comes loose then the handle soon comes out, but in addition to that the canes in the handles usually break due to this hard slugging of the ball," Bob explains.

Whilst Bob says he wielded their family's bats to a "reasonable standard", playing for Whyalla, West Torrens and Mannum clubs, it's his successors who have put the bats to particularly good use.

His son played state cricket for South Australia, and now his granddaughter recently captained the under 18 women's indoor cricket team.

Bob doesn't have the resources to generally supply to state or test cricket teams, so he says it was a very proud moment to see his son and granddaughter take to the pitch with these pieces of family history.